From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the first chapter and the second verse, the second verse in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now here, obviously, we are still continuing to consider the Apostle's salutation addressed to these members of the church at Ephesus, and perhaps in other churches also, to whom this particular letter was addressed.

We saw last Sunday morning that it is of vital importance for us to pay careful attention to what the Apostle says from the very beginning that nothing that he does is merely formal. And though he is here up to a point being formal in just offering this preliminary salutation, he is not doing so as the world does so.

Because everything that one does as a Christian differs essentially from everything that is done by the non-Christian. Even the introduction to a letter is different because we are Christian.

Well now, we saw last Sunday morning that in the first verse the Apostle reminds these Ephesian people as to what they were because they were Christians. He reminds them that they are saints, that they are faithful, in other words, that they are believers and believers who can be relied upon, and they are also, and still more wonderful and amazing, in Christ.

Those are the things, the fundamental things always about the Christian. The Christian is a saint, he is a man set apart. He is taken out of the world and its realm, he is devoted unto God, and is set apart by God and for God. He is a saint.

He is also one who believes, and we considered hurriedly and briefly the essence of that belief. We shall have to come back to it. But he is a believer. He isn't a man who has had an experience only and merely. He knows the cause of that experience. He knows in whom he has believed.

He is a man of faith and he has faith in certain things. If you like, he has faith in the faith, and he knows what that faith is. So he is faithful.

And above all, he is one who is in Christ, belonging to him as a limb does to a body. The relationship is that of the head, which is Christ, to the members of the body and to the various parts and portions.

Well now, having in that way described in the first verse what the Christian is, here in this second verse again still as a part of the salutation, the Apostle goes on to tell us what we ought to be enjoying because we are Christians.

The benefits that we should be enjoying as the result of this position.

And he puts it in these words, which in some shape or form are to be found at the commencement of almost every single New Testament epistle. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now it was the custom amongst all ancient peoples to greet one another when they met in this way. And the famous and favorite salutation which one Jew was addressed to another was, Peace, peace be with you. Peace was their great term.

The Apostle here doesn't merely say that. He goes well beyond it. That has been taken up and it has been lifted up into this new Christian realm. So that the Christian greeting, I say, and salutation, is much bigger, it's much wider, and it's much more profound than was the more or less formal salutation with which men used to greet one another.

I am emphasizing this because I do think it is of such tremendous importance. The Apostle doesn't use words like this lightly and loosely and thoughtlessly.

It isn't a sort of formula which he just puts down automatically, and you might almost have it printed already on your letter, the sort of thing one always does, and then you begin to write for yourself. Not at all.

The words he uses are charged with profound meaning.

And as he expresses this wish and this desire for the Ephesians and these other Christians, he is, as I am hoping to show you, wishing and desiring for them that they may experience fully all these profound riches that are to be found in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In other words, we shall see as we come to analyze this verse that it contains some of the profoundest truths of our faith.

That its terms, every one of them, are of the most vital importance.

May I again interject this remark?

When we read our Bibles, there is nothing obviously, therefore, that is more important than this, than to look at every word.

To question it, to ask what its meaning is.

How easy it is to decide to do a certain amount of Bible reading every day, and you do it at a certain time and follow it by a brief prayer, and your main idea is to read your portion. And we skip over these words, we slide over them. These profundities of our faith, here at the very beginning in the very introduction.

I say that here in this preliminary salutation, the Apostle plunges us at once into the very depths of the profoundest truth and doctrine that is to be found anywhere in the Scripture.

Oh, let me put it to you like this. This verse, I think we shall see, is a kind of overture to the whole epistle.

You know the technique, you know the fashion in great pieces of music, various forms of music in particular.

The man starts by composing the main body of the work.

It may have various movements, it may have various acts. And he has his theme in the first and the second and the third movements, or the first, second, or third act.

And certain things stand out. Then having finished the work, he goes back to the beginning and he writes an overture. The overture is the last thing the man writes. He doesn't start with it, he ends with it.

And what does he do in his overture? Well, generally, he collects together these main motifs, or even the main light motifs, the particular themes that have come out in the body of the work. In the overture, he just hints at them.

He throws out a suggestion. You will hear a note or two or a bar or two of something that is fully developed and expanded in the main body of the work. Here, it is solely in embryo, it is here in suggestion. And he gives you some kind of a foretaste to stimulate and to whet your appetite in order that you may know what he is going to develop at greater length and with a fuller richness in the main body of the work.

Now this second verse in this first chapter of this Epistle to the Ephesians, I am suggesting is the overture to the entire Epistle. Its major themes are all hinted at here.

So that as we come to analyze it, we shall find ourselves face to face with them.

Obviously, we shall go into them in greater detail later on. But let's note them at the very beginning.

What are they? Well, in a sense, they are here in two words, Grace, Peace.

Grace unto you and Peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, there are no two words which are more important in the whole of our faith than just these two words, Grace and Peace.

And yet, I say again, how lightly do we trip them off our lips and off our tongues. Grace and Peace. Without stopping to consider what they mean. Well, they mean this much in any rate.

Grace is the beginning of our faith, Peace is the end of our faith.

Grace is the fountain. It's the spring, it's the source. It's that particular place in the mountain from which that mighty river that you see there rolling into the sea starts and begins.

Without that, there would be nothing.

Grace, I say, is the ultimate origin and source and fount of everything in the Christian life.

And what does the Christian life lead to? What is it meant to produce? The answer is Peace.

So there's the source and there is the end. There is the beginning, there is the end. There is the initiation and here is the purpose for which it's all meant and designed and intended.

And therefore, it's always a very good thing for us to carry those two words in our mind and to remember that you can put the whole of your Christian faith, all you believe in detail and all you've ever experienced as the result of it, it all comes within these two bounds of Grace and Peace.

Everything is included there. That is why I say that in this one verse and in these statements, the Apostle really does present us with the whole Christian truth.

But come, let us look a little more closely at them.

What is Grace exactly?

This thing with which he starts and with which and because of which he tells us that everything else eventuates, what is Grace? Well, it's notoriously a very difficult thing to define.

But attempts have been made at definition, and I put them before you. I think they are very good. Grace essentially means unmerited favor.

Unmerited favor. Favor that you don't deserve. A favor is received which you have no right or title to in any shape or form, and of which you are entirely unworthy and entirely undeserving. Grace, that's it.

Or if you prefer it, you can call it condescending love. Love coming down, condescending, stooping down.

Or if you prefer it, you can call it beneficent kindness. Oh, these things mean more or less the same thing.

But there they are descriptive of what is meant by this extraordinary thing which is constantly put before us in the New Testament by this amazing and wonderful and glorious word, Grace.

The thing, you see, that Philip Doddridge used to like to contemplate and which made him burst forth into song one afternoon and to say, Grace. It is a charming sound, melodious to my ear. That's it. Grace.

One of the most beautiful words in the language, in every language, however it's translated. It is, I say, one of the most beautiful and glorious words in the language.

Well, then what's Peace? What exactly does Peace mean?

Well, the danger always with this word Peace is to give it a connotation or to attach meaning to it, which while true up to a point, falls very far short of the whole and of the complete meaning.

Peace does not merely mean cessation of war. It does mean that, but it means much more than that.

Peace doesn't merely mean rest and quiet. It does mean rest and quiet, but it means very much more than that.

I say, the danger always with Peace is to think of it negatively, that it's merely the absence of something that's very different, of warfare and boisterous and discord and so on, and that that ends, and therefore you have peace.

I suppose that it is very largely because the nations of the world have habitually thought of peace in those terms that we've never really had a true peace.

The peace that you see and read of in your history books is merely the interval between wars, unfortunately.

And that is because the whole of mankind has this totally unworthy and inadequate conception of peace. It isn't merely that you stop fighting. It is that, but it goes well beyond that.

Well, what does it mean?

Well, in a very interesting way, it is true to say that the actual root meaning of the word that is translated Peace is union. Union after separation. Now, that isn't my theory, that isn't my idea. That is simply an actual fact. The root meaning of the word is union, bringing together, reconciliation after a contest and a quarrel.

That is what Peace really means.

Now, the word itself is a word that comes into a term that is sometimes used. We talk about a man offering an irenicum to another when there has been a dispute. A peace offer, a proposal for peace. Well now, the meaning of that word, this irenicum, is that it's proposing a union, bringing together, a reconciliation. In other words, the two persons who have quarreled don't simply put down their pistols or their swords and just stand and look at one another instead of trying to kill one another. It isn't that. They come together, they shake hands, they are joined, there's a union, there's a reconciliation. Where there was a contest and a separation and a discord, they've been brought together. Now, you noticed, I read to you that second chapter of this Epistle at the beginning, and it's all there. He has made of the twain one.

Those who are within and those who are without, those who are near and those who are far off, they've been brought together. The middle wall of partition has gone. They've been made one, and by one spirit, they go together to the one Lord. That's the idea.

That's the meaning of Peace.

Well, says someone, is that all?

Grace be unto you and Peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The beginning and the end. Grace and Peace. And we finished. Oh, no.

For the moment you confront something like this, you are bound to ask a question.

And the question you are bound to ask is this: Why does the Apostle wish this for these Ephesians?

Why does he, as he writes to them and out of his great love toward them, why does he say, this is what I desire for you, this is what I wish for you, this is what I am praying for you? Why does he offer such a wish and such a prayer and such a desire?

Well, you see, the moment you ask that sort of question, you find that the answer is, as I have already been saying, the whole of Christian doctrine.

Now, we are concerned on these Sunday mornings not merely to discuss and to consider together this great truth and to apply it to ourselves. Incidentally, I trust that we are learning many other lessons as we go along, and one lesson is this, surely, that we must learn how to read the Scriptures.

And if I may put it like this, there is no one thing that is more important when we read the Scriptures than just this: to ask it questions.

The Scripture likes being questioned. It likes you to ask questions. And I am giving you an illustration of that. I read, Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And I ask, well, why do I need Grace and Peace? Why does the Apostle wish me to know that? What does that tell me? Why does he use these terms? Why didn't he use some other terms? What's the background? What's the content of all this? He says this as the result of something else. Of course. And what is it? Well, let me remind you very hurriedly of it.

By desiring Grace and Peace for us, he is telling us something about ourselves. He is telling us the truth about ourselves.

He is telling us, in other words, that what we need above everything else is Grace, which will lead to Peace.

Well, why do we need this Grace which will lead to Peace?

Well, the answer is, because man is what he is as the result of the Fall and as the result of sin.

Well, what is that?

Well, here it is, according to the Scripture. You've got it again in that second chapter, which seems to be an amazing exposition of this second verse of the first chapter.

Man in sin, you see, is at enmity with God.

Man by nature as he is born into this world is a hater of God.

He is not only separated from God, but he fights God. He hates God. He is an enemy and an alien in his mind from God. The law of God is hateful to him. Everything that is in him by nature is utterly opposed to God.

That's the truth about man.

And the result is, you see, that man in this condition is fighting God, opposed to him, hating him. That's why he delights to read in a newspaper that somebody by looking down a microscope has claimed to be able to prove that there is no God and that religions are all wrong. Man jumps at it and likes it. Why? He is a God-hater.

And so on. Well, very well, there he is. He is in a state of enmity against God. Yes, but you see, that leads to something else.

Because he is in this wrong relationship to God, he is also in a state of enmity against himself, in a sense.

He is fighting this warfare against God outside, but because of that, he is fighting a war within himself also.

Now, this is the whole tragedy of man. He doesn't believe what I am saying by nature, but it's a fact, it's true of him. Man is in a state of internal conflict, and he doesn't know why.

But he is in a state of internal conflict.

He wants to do certain things, but something in him tells him that it's wrong to do those things, and therefore he quarrels with himself. He has got something that he can't get rid of, which we call the conscience, which go where he will, will never leave him. And though he thinks he can do a thing and be perfectly happy and get away with it, he can't. He may silence other people, but he can't silence this voice that's inside him. There's a state of internal warfare. There is a tension.

And man doesn't know why it is, but he knows that it is so.

But here, you see, in the Scriptures and in the Gospel, we know exactly why it is.

Man was made by God in such a way that he can only be at peace within himself, even when he is at peace with God.

Man was never meant to be a God, but he is trying to make himself into a God. He sets up his own standard and his own desire and his own rules and laws, and he is in this impossible, precarious position. Something in himself denies it, and there he is, quarreling and fighting in a state of tension.

He doesn't know very much about peace. He hasn't got peace with God, he hasn't got peace within himself. Yes, but still worse, because of all this, he is in a state of warfare with everybody else.

Because, unfortunately for him, everybody else wants to be a God also.

Because of sin, we have all become self-centered, egocentric, they call it. Turning in upon the ego, pandering to the ego, this thing that we put up and which we put on a pedestal and which we think is so marvelous and wonderful, superior to everybody else. Yes, but everybody else is doing exactly the same thing. And there's a war amongst the gods. We are all supreme, we are all right, and everybody else is wrong. But the other man is saying exactly the same thing about me. And the result is the tension and the warfare and the discord and the unhappiness between man and man.

Now we begin to see why the Apostle prays that we may know peace.

There is man and there is man's life as the result of sin and as the result of his falling away from God.

He is in a state of disunity within and without, in a state of discord, in a state of warfare, in a state of unhappiness, in a state of wretchedness. Oh, yes, but it doesn't even stop at that.

Man has brought all this upon himself by his disobedience of God.

He can dislike that again and he can deny it, but he can't get away from it. He has tried to put forward every other conceivable explanation, but it doesn't hold. He has brought in the theory of evolution which tries to explain it all by saying that man was just an animal a few millennia ago, and he is only slowly coming out of that, and therefore he is imperfect, and he will be all right. But you see, he doesn't seem to get all right. You would have gathered from the teaching of the last century, from the biologists and the poets and the philosophers and the politicians, that by this century man would have really emancipated and that there would have been perfect peace. But it hasn't come, it's the other way around. So man tries to explain it in other ways, but he can't.

Man has brought all this upon himself because of his disobedience of God.

I can prove that in this way. Man dislikes correction. He dislikes the whole idea of law. He scoffs at it, he jeers at it, he ridicules it. He regards law as an insult. He says that, of course, because he believes he is so wonderful. That he doesn't need to be kept down by a law, he can do that for himself, and he resents this interference. In other words, and this is the great message of the Bible, isn't it?

Though man has fallen into sin and has got himself into this wretched state, God has still been concerned about him. And God has intervened and interfered and God has given laws and God has given directions. But what has man done with them? Invariably, he has rejected them. He has spat upon them. And he has spat into the face of the God who gave them. It is God who has appointed kings and countries and bounds and territories and magistrates who wield the sword in order to keep things within bounds. But man is always fighting against this, he dislikes it. Thereby, I say, you see his terrible hatred of God and his enmity against God. God man is rejecting always what God proposes for him.

And you see, there's only one inevitable conclusion to come to, therefore, with respect to man.

Man richly deserves the fate that he has brought upon himself.

Indeed, we can go much further. Man deserves something much worse, much bigger. He deserves to be punished. He is not only a lawbreaker who deserves to be punished, he is a fool who will not listen and who rejects the overtures, and therefore, I say, he deserves punishment, he deserves damnation.

There's no excuse for man. He deliberately sinned and fell. He deliberately rejects God's guidance.

Can you offer any plea for such a person? Given the Bible, he laughs at it. Though you can see in the Bible that the men who conform to it find happiness and peace and joy, man rejects it and laughs at it. Though man has to admit theoretically that everybody in the world, if everybody in the world this morning were a Christian, most of the problems would be solved and would be vanished, still he rejects Christianity.

I say that such a creature deserves nothing but suffering and punishment and hell. That's man as the result of his own action in sin.

Yes, but even more wonderful, having taken our nature unto himself, he then gives us his nature. For Grace doesn't merely give us forgiveness. It gives us a new birth, and we become the children of God. The Son of God became the son of man, that the sons of men might be made the sons of God. And you see, it means this, that not only have we this peace with God and within and with others and so on, but we enjoy the favor of God. That's the Grace of God. Why? Well, because we are now the children of God. In Christ, God, who is his God and his Father, has become our God and our Father. So the Apostle can say, including us who are Christians with himself, Grace be unto you and Peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. The highest honor of all, the greatest thing of all, is that we become the children of God and shall spend our eternity in the presence of our Father. Grace. It's all undeserved. But that's what it leads to. Peace, sonship, ultimately, glory. Hallelujah.